


The Faceplate

by resurrectedhippo



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Commander Rogers, Consent Issues, Dark, Horror, M/M, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Secret Invasion (Marvel), Relationship Reveal, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:06:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29861994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrectedhippo/pseuds/resurrectedhippo
Summary: Steve’s always wistful in the evenings after a good, satisfying fuck. He tells me things I should know but somehow don’t remember. His voice is careful, gentle when he reminds me of Maya Hansen and the Mandarin, and how apparently, I stopped my own heart to keep him safe. He narrates events I will learn to remember.When we talk about the war, I apologize a hundred times and beg Steve for his forgiveness. Steve kisses me, tells me everything will be alright. He takes us both down dwindling paths until we’re back to cul-de-sacs. It’s where his thoughts orbit around the same dead-end.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 19
Kudos: 52
Collections: STB Bingo: Round One, SteveTony Acheronian Bingo 2021





	The Faceplate

**Author's Note:**

> Bingo square and other warnings are in the endnotes. I hope you like it.

I don’t have to open my eyes to know Steve is watching me.

He’s always watching me and cataloguing my every breath. He tracks each movement, from the tilt of my head to my gait.

I plaster a smile on my face and turn my body towards Steve. 

There’s that small quirk on his lips. Steve nods, looking pleased and enthralled.

That must be encouragement. I must be doing alright. This is all fine. 

I used to think Steve’s attention was akin to love.

Now, I know better, because he looks at me the way people look at ghosts they learn to live with. He's resigned; there's no end to the haunting. Ok, alright, I tell myself every night like clockwork, when he cups my face and brings our mouths together for a kiss.

Steve’s mouth is sour, but I don’t complain because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. He’s him; I’m me; and we’ll both still be here in the morning. Steve leads the kiss and I follow him through the ride. It’s like flying. If I stop thinking, if I stop documenting his expressions, his likes and dislikes, then I’ll be fine. 

It’s better not to think.

He pulls away just a few inches to kiss the space under my eyes. “Good morning, Tony,” he says, voice wistful. 

Steve prefers me pliant and needy: desperate for his arms around me, soft for his kisses, nearly distressed for how much I want him to be inside me. But he also likes when I resist, so I turn away from him, and he grabs me by the hips, pulling me to him until he can get on top of me. 

He pins my body to the bed and grinds his growing erection on my hip. He murmurs with sleepy eyes how much he loves me, how he’s so thankful we made it work past SHRA, how much he misses me every time he has to go do duties as Commander. 

But I know better. Steve is always alert. He’d catch my arms if I tried to push him off the mattress. He doesn’t even let me crawl on top of him. There’s no riding his cock. It’s always me with my back pressed against the mattress, his blue eyes always on me.

I used to be stronger. Faster. I was defiant. I was a warrior. Now, I’m just Tony Stark.

Steve kisses me again, like an apology, then he’s pressing against my hole, still wet and swollen from hours ago. He groans, kisses my cheeks, and tells me, “Shellhead, god. Tony.”

* * *

I get on my hands and knees, spread my legs, and tell him that I love the way he fills me up and yes, I can take it harder. Of course, I can. Please, more, harder. This is something I am used to.

Steve tugs at my hair, then runs his hand through it. He flips me so I’m on my back and he arranges my legs to wrap around his waist. 

“You like this,” Steve says, thrusting deeper and skating a hand over my body. My ribs. My cock. “Tell me, can you tell me how much you like this?”

I close my eyes for a moment, gathering my thoughts, pulling myself together, thrusting this awful suit around me. 

“Yes, I like it. I love it Steve.” I open my eyes because he needs to see me to know this is real. “Steve, Steve, Steve.” 

Steve groans, his movements growing frantic and he’s whispering about how much he loves this, loves us. “Tony, Tony,” he repeats again and again. 

The sound washes over me and I focus on chasing orgasm instead. That’s what I can do. White out for a few moments, let this body do what it was meant to. 

I can be happy when I stop thinking.

* * *

That’s the thing about resilience: you bounce back. You can take more and more and more and more. You stitch yourself together and the bruises eventually fade. Who cares about the scars no one can see. 

It doesn’t matter.

* * *

I smell like come. It drips down my thighs. I don’t express displeasure anymore. Steve is still on top of me.

He kisses my back and rubs the knots off my shoulders. He is painfully gentle, like he doesn’t want to hurt me. His fingers count my vertebrae. A tap on each one. I shut my eyes and summon a moan when he fucks his come back inside me. 

It isn't difficult. It's meant to feel good. 

In a way, it does. 

My muscles are used to this. They’re loose from Steve’s careful fingers. He always wants to stretch me open because he’s afraid to hurt me. He tells me he wants to make me feel good and he wants to make sure I want it. 

It could be worse.

I could be bleeding from every hole. My mouth. My ass. My nose. 

Steve could be straddling me and telling me that he hates me and that I’m worse than the scum of the earth. He could explain to me with certainty why I’m awful while he chokes me.

_You should be dead. Die, die. You’re an abomination._

Some nights, when I fall asleep, I still hear the echo of the shield and Steve’s broken sobs from the bathroom. He runs the faucet so I can’t hear him. 

I could be lying in my coffin with the taste of blood and sand in my mouth. 

But I’m not, and somehow, I am told that this second chance at life is supposed to be mercy. 

I accept this fate because there’s nothing else for it.

* * *

My days blur together. I live in a mausoleum and wear a dead man’s clothes. 

Sometimes Steve is gone all day and comes back late in the evenings. On those nights, Steve pads into the room, strips off his suit and drops the shield without a glance at me. 

I know what to expect. I remove my clothes and wait. 

He comes out with a towel on his waist and circles the bed until reaches me. His body is drawn tight, exhaustion evident in the clench of his jaw and on the pull of his shoulders. My job is to make him feel better, so I tug the towel and get on my knees.

I kiss a line down his stomach.

I shiver when his large hands make their way down my nape. He pulls me closer until I feel his cock against the back of my throat. He doesn’t fuck my face, not yet.

Steve lets me adjust. I open my mouth wider, then get a hand on his shaft and time my strokes. I suck the head of his dick and choke myself on it. 

Steve trained me on what he likes: a tight fist on the base of his cock and small licks to his slit. Sometimes, he enjoys my teeth lightly scraping his shaft.

I close my eyes and moan, imagining the sky and how spaceships would fly across galaxies. I pretend Steve’s drawn out groans are the hum of an engine. 

Hum. Hum. Hum. Always humming.

* * *

Steve comes on my face then kisses me. It’s sloppy, but I’ve swallowed so much of his come that I don’t grimace at the taste. He towers over me and licks me open. 

I have lines that are seared into my brain.

I deliver them: “Steve, Steve, please. Oh, oh.” 

He tugs my cock. It’s the body’s natural response to get hard due to stimulus. Sometimes, I think I like this. No, no, I have lines. I’m a character. I love this.

“Yeah? Does it feel good, Tony?” 

Steve finally breaks a sweat. We’ve been going at this for a while. He needs to work it out. He needs this body, this face, this brain. He craves this voice. That’s why I’m here. 

“Yes, yes,” I repeat again and again. I moan. I groan. I get a hand on my cock and it finally begins to feel good.

Steve’s cock is thick and he’s bigger than any sun I’ve seen. Maybe this is why they have monuments of him across the city.

Steve is all over the papers. They all laud him for doing excellent work to protect the nation. They write articles about how Commander Rogers is dealing with the fallout of the Skrull Invasion. They proclaim that he’s rebuilding the world, and it’s so much better this way because when Tony Stark was running the show, he fucked up. 

Steve is a leader and this country’s moral compass. He stands with his back straight and he listens attentively. Everyone trusts him. It’s Captain America, for fucks sake.

I think it’s a load of shit, but I’ve learned to hold my tongue. Otherwise, Steve will make me stick it out and cut it himself. 

He grabs my head and forces our eyes to meet. It’s the bluest eye.

“Tony, Tony, Tony, fuck,” he repeats the name again and again, measuring it with each thrust, each roll of his hips. Then, his tears are falling, fat, ugly things. I kiss it away and pretending each peck is a punch on his face.

* * *

I don’t cry anymore. It’s useful to spend energy on something so trite. Nothing will change my condition.

Steve’s always wistful in the evenings after a good, satisfying fuck. He tells me things I should know but somehow don’t remember. His voice is careful, gentle when he reminds me of Maya Hansen and the Mandarin, and how apparently, I stopped my own heart to keep him safe. He narrates events I will learn to remember. He makes me tell him the stories as a way to test me.

He quizzes me on how we met, how the Avengers found him all those years ago. He asks me, “Do you remember the first words we said to each other?”

I repeat what he tells me, word for word. I tell him about Joanna, then Rumiko, and make myself cry when I speak about them, because I’m supposed to be vulnerable. This is part of the role.

When we talk about the war, I apologize a hundred times and beg Steve for his forgiveness. Steve kisses me, tells me everything will be alright. He takes us both down dwindling paths until we’re back to cul-de-sacs. It’s where his thoughts orbit around the same dead-end.

Tony. Tony. Tony.

* * *

I don’t compare myself to him anymore.

I am Tony Stark.

I am Iron Man. 

Only, I am without a gauntlet and a golden coffin to submerge my body in.

* * *

The first time I drink, Steve breaks my nose. 

Tony Stark doesn’t do that anymore. I didn’t listen, and I paid the price. Even now, I don’t know the currency to gamble on when it comes to Steve.

He throws me over the coffee table after punching my face bloody. When I try to sit up, he walks over, slow, like it doesn’t matter whether I live or die. He places his leather boot on my chest and presses my back into the broken glass. 

He stomps, hard, once, twice, three times, until I lose count. 

“Please, no.” I’m always begging Steve these days.

“You’ll heal just fine.” 

Steve’s lips twisted into a rotten smile. 

He is still so handsome. I can see why they like him.

He has that spirit about him, the sort that you follow anywhere because you’re too blind to see that he's simply just a son of a bitch who lets silly things like love dictate him. 

Steve strikes a pressure point and slaps me across the face hard. His ring cuts my face.

He's so broken down by grief, it's pathetic. I nearly laugh.

Then, his eyes go wide, realizing the veracity of the scene. There’s blood on his hands, but he barely pay it any mind. He drops to his knees and tilts to wipe away the blood on my face.

He’s mumbling apologies, “Oh god, Tony, I’m sorry — I’m so sorry, fuck, please.” 

“It’s fine. It’s alright, Steve,” I say, examining how his eyes look for mistakes in my form.

“No,” he says, gripping my face almost hard enough to crush my skull. “An octave lower.”

I nod, wondering if there was ever a choice, whether whoring myself out like this could still be justified as survival.

An octave lower, then: “It’s fine, Steve. It’s alright.”

Steve circles the cut on my jaw, then digs his fingernail into the slit. He sighs. “Good, good. That’s exactly it. Keep it like that, alright?”

“Alright, Cap,” I say exactly what he wants to hear, what he told me he likes. 

This is how Steve and Tony were. Are. Should be.

Steve traces the shape of my eyebrows. A stream of tears fall from his cheekbones. “Better, that’s better.”

* * *

Steve only beats me when I’m awful or I jut out my jaw and pretend I’m above the law. 

Steve wears the judge’s robes. He’s the single voter on the verdict, and he’s the one who puts the noose around my neck. The rope is his fingers closing around my neck. 

He’s silent about it, too. Meticulous. Steve doesn’t lose control these days. His hits are measured, calibrated for me to withstand and heal from. 

When I’m bruised and bloody, Steve supports my weight in the shower and kisses my neck. He takes me apart like fucking is an apology.

I pretend I’m above the sky, flying away to another planet, another galaxy.

I was a warrior once. Now, I belong to a dying breed.

* * *

From the rooftop, there’s nothing but the smog and lights from the high-rises. The bridge across the river is still undergoing constructions, as is Central Park and the rest of New York. 

I close my eyes and pretend the sound of stereo from the apartment across the street is the humming of an engine.

I see the spiral galaxy. 

Stars are just balls of gas that stay stagnant until they die. When they've reached the expiry date, they blow up and take everything with them. 

Tony Stark is like that. Steve Rogers, too.

Steve pulls me to his chest, and he settles his chin on my shoulder. He nuzzles my neck and keeps me warm, even if I’m not cold.

He points up at the sky, tracing the lines from one point to another. “That’s Cassiopeia, and there we have the Dippers.”

He tells me like I don’t know, like I don’t know what it’s like to fly, what it’s like to be in space, what it’s like to roam the universe, free as a creature should be.

Steve notes the position of other constellations and I imagine I’m seeing Andromeda.

* * *

Steve is beside me, but his thoughts are far away.

It’s one of those nights where he’s mulling over history by going through his mental archives. His memories are pristine documents that he turns over and peruses as part of a nightly routine. He tells me things I’ve said before. He describes the grit of my voice as we fought in the Mansion, then later, the rubble from our battle site, and how I stood with my gauntlet’s fired up, against him. 

He cries as he draws both of us from his memory bank. 

“Never again,” I whisper, minding the crack of my voice. 

Steve responds well to it. He pulls me to his chest, kisses the top of my head, and dotes on me. He apologizes for holding the shield above my head. 

Grief makes men nostalgic and nostalgia is a reminder that men are irrecoverable. 

“I really was going to kill you,” Steve says. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

I want him to do it, but I don’t say that. 

“It’s alright, I’m not going anywhere.” 

Barbed words aren’t enough. He kisses my neck and sobs. 

I cradle his face and trace the line of his nose. 

“The bluest eye.” Steve kisses each one until I blink my eyes open. "There they are.”

I want to gouge them out just to see how he’d react. I wonder what he’ll break this time.

* * *

In the bathroom, I shave the goatee to the classic cut. Steve will check and make sure I get the line precise. 

My fingers slip and I cut my upper lip. It would be so easy to take the straight blade and slit my throat. There’s no point in waiting it out now.

We’re a dying breed.

But first, I need a parting gift for Steve. I place the blade under my eyelid and follow the curve. It’s just an organ. 

I’ve already lost my right foot by trying to escape in the early weeks of this imprisonment. 

Steve took my left hand and had it stitched back by medical. I don’t know what’s worse. The false generosity of his mercy, or the searing pain of the cut from his shield. 

But Steve wants this face in perfect condition. No matter how many times he places his fist on it or how he punches me until the ring leaves a dent, Steve always patches me up. 

He stitches the cuts himself and takes a warm towel to my face. Then, he murmurs dark threats that masquerade as apologies. He calls me Tony when he says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. It’s just — you get — you’re not following orders. I told you what to do. Can’t you just do it? Tony, please. I’m asking here.” 

I place the eye on a glass, half empty glass, and watch the water turn pink.

My reflection is this dead man’s bloody face and one blue eye.

I shake my head and wonder when I decided this form of freedom with Steve’s hands around me was better than the cage they place the rest of my people in. 

At least there, I knew my time was finite. There would have been a bullet to my head after subjecting myself to medical prodings, to the experimentation, to interrogations about my biology. 

_Who are you? What are you? Do you know what you’ve done?_

I know what Andromeda looks like and how the war to build an empire means losing sight of meaning. 

This was all because Steve loves him.

As I roll my neck, his face disappears. The bluest eyes that Steve Rogers loves so much are gone and replaced by deep brown ones, inherited from ancestors billions years old. Tony's hair recedes until my head is green and my ears poke out. 

Here I am, a broken, rotten thing. Steve Rogers is right about that.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Steve yells, hands clenched to his side, battle-ready. His face twisted in horror. 

He hates green. Blue is his favorite color. 

I throw the straight blade and miss his head. There’s a small nick on his temple. I used to be stronger. I can’t overpower him. I’ve tried. 

“I’m done.”

“You’re done when I say you’re done.” Steve strides over, kicking the blade towards me.

He’s in his skin-tight Commander uniform. The star on his chest blazes like pride. Humans are such fools.

“And I’m not done with you yet.”

“I’m not Tony! Just kill me! Give me mercy. I’d rather die.”

“If I kill you, it isn’t punishment,” Steve says. “You know what you did. Your people. Coming here. Ruining us. _Invading._ ”

I am at a loss for words. Steve feeds me poison with these lies. He doesn’t understand why we came here. 

It’s love. Because he loves you. He loves them. It’s all about that. 

“You can’t threaten me anymore. Everyone is dead. My people are dead. I’m not the first. Just kill me. Find another one. You have the rest of us locked up, so get someone else. I’m sick of this skin.” 

“Then, you shouldn’t have come. I lost him because of —”

“You bastard. You killed him — how could you. You’re sick. Don’t blame my people for that.”

“You’re not the first to say this to me, you know,” Steve measures out, voice incredibly bored. He just shakes his head. He grips my shoulders. My balance is off. It’s hard to stand on one foot.

“Fuck you.” I spit on his face.

Steve punches my face. My shoulder. My stomach. When I’m on the ground, he kicks me repeatedly. I don’t beg. I don’t tell him to stop. Maybe I’ll die this time.

“But you’re the longest that’s lasted.” Steve squats, pulls my head and slaps me just once, like it’s meant to be a pat on the face.

“Shall I take pride in that? When will you kill me? After you’ve taken my other leg, my right hand?” I laugh, and it’s my own voice I speak to him with. “None of that matters, just this face right?” 

“No, no.” Steve’s eyes widen when I change back and wear Tony Stark’s face. I scramble on the tiles and press the blade on my face. I follow the slant on these cheekbones and this stupid jaw. I reach the other eye. “Not him. Don’t.”

“You think I’m awful? My people wanted nothing but a home. That's what all species across this banal existence ever want.”

“And you were willing to enslave us for it.”

I laugh. Steve is so determined, so earnest in his beliefs, yet he’s the one that keeps lying to himself. 

“Look at where we are, Steve. It’s always been about him. Your love is a monster.”

“Whoever said love wasn’t,” he whispers.

“Him, probably,” I say.

“Stop. Don’t talk about him. You don’t have the right.”

“So, I just wear his face and you fuck me and apologize and when you’re upset, you hurt me the way you would never have hurt him right? Because now, what does it matter, he’s gone. Dead. By your hands. Your shield. That’s on you.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” His voice is hard.

“You told me everything.”

“Not everything.” 

“Oh, shut the fuck up, you sick son of a bitch. You’re no better than me. Us. You’re the worst, you’re —”

“Fine.” Steve raises a hand and sighs. He drops on his knees, and straddles my waist. 

“How many times have you done this with his face on us?” 

“Shut up,” he whispers, voice harsh. Half of this face is bloody. Steve wipes it, props me up, and leans down to kiss me. Him. His face. Tony’s forehead. 

He grabs the knife from my remaining hand and I let it go. I stare at him in defiance, just the way Tony would have. 

“Was this how Tony looked at you when you —” 

Steve slits my throat, just like I wanted, and I smile because I’m wearing Tony’s face as he kills me. 

We’ll all wear Tony Stark’s face as he kills us. 

It’s slow moving, but the blood on his hands are green. 

I think of our galaxy and the hubris of empire and the promise of salvation. I used to be a warrior once. 

I close my eyes.

He must be looking at me in revulsion. My fingers are green. My body is turning green. He fucked this evergreen warrior, and he’ll take more of us until the last. 

But we are a dying breed, so it doesn’t matter. Steve will have all of us, and he’ll reach the last of us, and then, he’ll have no Tony Stark to hold at night. 

“This one is done. Bring me another one,” Steve barks out the order in his comms. 

He is the last man I’ll see, the last voice I’ll hear. 

I fade away, and die with my own face.

**Author's Note:**

> Bingo Square for STAB: Skrulls  
> Bingo Square for STB: Conditioning
> 
> Other warnings: non-con, gaslighting, manipulation, captivity, death
> 
> Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think, please. I'm very happy with this one! Kudos and comments are a form of love. <3


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